Public ARTRoadside Art

City SculpturesLandscape Art

The Great Wall of KinsaleEilis O’ Connell (1988)

• In 1988, the arts council of Kinsale commissioned a sculpture for the entrance of a public park. It becomes a fairground in the summer months.

• Eilis O Connell, a highly successful artists at the time got the commission.

• As the site was a popular seating area, she incorporate the function of public seating into the design.

• The brief specified that a maintenance free material was used. She used COR-TEN steel which when it rusted went a deep brown colour but it would rust no more.

• It was a long narrow site, so to balance it, a gateway was formed by two huge slabs of COR-TEN steel.

• Adjoining it were two meandering low lying curved walls with slats of teak wood for seating.

• Two smaller tent like structures were designed as shelters over a section of seating.

• No sooner was the sculpture installed when complaints started coming in:

• The desired rust affect took longer than expected with the dry summer that followed.

• The reaction of some of the locals was one of hatred.• They had no idea what it was supposed to represent

and simply could not understand why this large, abstract, challenging piece of rusty metal had been placed in such a lovely place.

• Letters were written to newspapers, discussed on radio and people travelled from far and wide to see what was causing such controversy.

• They said that not only was it an eyesore but it was danger to children as some had been riding their BMX bikes up the two lower curved shelter sections

• The artist loved the teenagers reaction to it and loved the tyre marks left on the rust as she seen it as a form of drawing.

• The demands for its removal were so strong that changes were made which distraught the artist.

• It was painted and a wall parallel to the work with a number of decorative ponds were added. This was not that the artist wanted.

Hybrid Love SeatLouise Walsh (2008)

• This sculpture differs very much to the Kinsale one as it was especially designed to include the local population.

• At the St. James Hospital Luas stop in Dublin a fence has become a seat and railings are topped with magical gargoyles in an intriguing work of public art.

• When the Luas held a competition to commission an artist to build a boundary feature along a borderline between the Mary Aikenhead Flats and the Luas stop.

• Louise Walsh was the winning artist with her proposal for Hybrid Love Seat

• Rather than build a barrier that would isolate the nearby flats from the stop, she designed a curved railing piece that creates a series of seats on both sides.

• It was a division of space but it was less of a barrier in that it offered equal usage on both sides.

• Part of her proposal was to make this a participatory project and enabled the local community to experience real ownership of the art.

• Local teenagers working with the artist made modelled figures in clay that were later cast in bronze.

• Students from the Sculpture Department in the nearby NCAD volunteered as mentors on the project also.

• The gargoyles were mounted on the railings and are an important , as well as charming, part of the overall work.

• This project shows the importance of participation as well as consultation and co-operation with local communities.

Problems that face Public Art

• At present finding out about certain sculptures and who made them is a bit hit and miss.

• The main way to do this is through the websites of local authorities.

• The money that goes into making the work should also be used in advertising it and creating information for the public.

Vandalism:• Deliberate vandalism is sometimes done to public

art.• Naturally, if an artwork has been damaged or

defaces, area residents will not be pleased and may object to the artworks presence in the locality.

• The fear that a proposed artwork might be damaged or defaced is sometimes the source of resistance by local residents to having a work of art placed in their area.

• Artwork can be considered a nuisance if it acts as a gathering spot for youths engaged in anti-social behaviour.

Roadside Art• Irish roads have been greatly livened up with

hundreds of figures and statues in the recent past.

• As the national roads are upgrades, artworks have appeared because of fraction of the road-building budget has been devoted to the placement of art at landmark junctures along them. Generally these are permanent and site specific.

The Gaelic ChieftainMaurice Harron (1999)

• 5m tall horse back Chieftain in Roscommon is according to a recent radio programme, Irelands most popular roadside sculpture.

• Made of metal pieces and stands 2 miles north of Boyle on the site of the Battle of Curleius. This battle took place in 1599 between and English force and a rebel Irish force led by ‘Red Huge O Donnell’.

• The English were ambushed and routed while marching through the pass in the Curlew mountains and many died.

• Those driving past the site today probably have little knowledge or interest in the event but the sculpture does proved a picnic area and an opportunity to rest and take in the magnificent views of Lough Key

Hands Across the DivideMaurice Harron (1999)

• "Hands Across the Divide," designed by Derry teacher Maurice Hannon after the fall of the Iron Curtain, is a powerful metal sculpture of two figures extending their hands to each other, inspired by the growing hope for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.

• It is located in the roundabout at the west end of Craigavon Bridge.

• He was born and grew up in Derry. He studied sculpture at the Ulster College of Art and Design in Belfast.

Rowan Gillespie• One of Irelands most eloquent contemporary

artists. • He has produced numerous sculptures in Dublin

as well as other parts of the country and abroad. • He works in bronze but unlike other artists he

does his own casting and has built a one-man workshop and foundry where he carries out this complicated process entirely alone.

• He lives in Dublin now and has produced a huge number of works in the city.

The Kiss

Birdy Aspirations

The Blackrock Dolmen

Famine• Most famous work is Famine at custom House

Quay in Dublin.• Commissioned by Norma Smurfit and

presented to the city of Dublin in 1997. • A commemorative work, it is dedicated to the

Irish people who were forced to emigrate during the Great Famine in Ireland in the 19th century.

• Draws attention to world poverty today as much as it does to the Irish famine in the 1840’s.

• Figures are life sized but they seem taller due to their emaciated appearance.

• Nearly all of his sculptures tell a story, but it seems as if each of these haunting skeletal figures could relate to a unique tale of suffering and loss.

• One cannot walk past this work without being affected by the figures’ predicament.

• Making their way slowly and with halting steps towards emigration ships, they are hallow-eyes and clasp pitifully small bundles to their chests.

• One man carries a limp child over his shoulders and a women at the rear stumbles forward, her hands hanging lifelessly at her side.

• The figures stand together, yet in their misery each one looks withdrawn and utterly alone.

• As they pass, a mangy dog is watching them, which adds to the poignancy of the scene.

• In June 2007, a second and equally emotional series of famine sculptures by Rowan Gillespie was unveiled by the previous president Mary McAleese on the quayside in Toronto's Ireland Park to remember the arrival of these miserable refugees in Canada.

Landscape ArtThe New Sound

Artist: Ruth LyonsBackground: The New Sound was created for An Cosan Glas Lionnir, an annual sculpture festival that takes place in the sand dunes of Magheraroarty, North Donegal over two nights.

• The New Sound operate as sound mirrors reflecting sound within a close radius of the centre of the white circles.

• This work was inspired by Marconi's experiments in early transatlantic communication much of which were carried out on the coasts of North Donegal.

• The form of the work refers to the concrete early warning devices that were used in the build up to WWll to detect the sound of incoming fighter jets prior to the invention of radar and that still stand defiantly along the east coast of England as monuments to an obsolete technology.

• The New Sound is concerned with the echo of this concave form in the contemporary communication devices that are abundant on our landscape.

• Within this work is a concern for a contemporary monumentality and a reflection on how we as a society represent ourselves through lasting material constructions